Micro-g NExT challenges students to work in teams to design and build prototypes of tools to be used by astronauts during spacewalk training in the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory (NBL) located at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. The tools will be designed to address authentic, current space exploration problems. Teams will travel to Houston to test their prototypes in the simulated microgravity environment of the NBL, the same 6.2-million-gallon indoor pool used to train astronauts for spacewalking.

This project coincides with the 50th anniversary of NASA extravehicular activities (EVAs). March 18 is the anniversary of the first spacewalk by Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, who left his Voskhod-2 vehicle for a 12-minute tethered walk, and June 3 is the golden anniversary of NASA astronaut Ed White’s Gemini IV 23-minute tethered spacewalk, the first for a U.S. astronaut.

Micro-g NExT is managed by the Office of Education at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. The program helps support the agency's education policy of using NASA's unique missions and programs to engage and encourage students to pursue science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) careers.